


Intertwine

by tastewithouttalent



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Hair Braiding, Hair Kink, M/M, No Plot/Plotless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-07 12:58:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15908748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "'This is pointless for a dwarf. We have other things to worry about than the plait in our hair.'" Legolas and Gimli take a moment to share in the small details.





	Intertwine

“This is absurd,” Gimli grumbles, shifting his shoulders irritably as if he’s trying to shake off Legolas leaning in close over one of the his ears. “All this pretty Elvish frippery is bad enough on an elf. On a dwarf? I’ll be the laughingstock of all who see me.”

“No more than I will be,” Legolas says evenly without lifting his focus from the work of his fingers in the weight of Gimli’s hair. “Unless you mean to go back on your own offer?” This gets him a huff of refusal and another heavy shrug of Gimli’s shoulders; Legolas smiles, glad for his present angle to keep the overt affection in the expression from being entirely clear to the dwarf sitting cross-legged on the floor before him. “You’ll have nothing to worry about in any case. I doubt anyone will be able to see it in the first place, even before you put your helmet back on.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Gimli says. “This is pointless for a dwarf. We have other things to worry about than the plait in our hair.”

“Indeed,” Legolas says. “Like the plait of your beard, I imagine?”

Gimli bristles. “You’re not touching the beard.”

Legolas grins outright at that, and with no attempt at all to disguise the expression. “I wouldn’t think of asking for such intimacy for at least another century.” He finishes the curve of the braid he’s been working into the hair just over Gimli’s ear and ties it off to let the long ends of the grey-streaked lock sweep in to rejoin the rest of the dwarf’s unusually unbound hair. “There. It’s done.”

“So quickly?” Gimli lifts a hand to press against the side of his head and search out the braid beneath his fingers. “I thought you’d be at it for an hour or more.”

“I hardly take hours over my appearance when we are travelling,” Legolas tells him. “I assure you we elves are as able to move as rapidly as the best dwarf.”

Gimli snorts. “As _a_ dwarf,” he corrects. “I’d like to see the elf who can keep pace with the best among us.” But his heart’s not really in the argument, as Legolas watches his fingers smooth through the weight of his hair. “Did all that pulling on my hair you did amount to anything in the end, or is your wonderful vision failing you? There’s nothing here.”

“It’s smaller than that,” Legolas says, and reaches to catch his fingers around the solid strength of Gimli’s searching hand so he can draw it in and down to guide those questing fingers to the narrow span of the plait laid into a curve over the other’s ear. “Here.”

“Ah,” Gimli says; and then, with a huffing grumble, “Why didn’t you say you had made it so tiny? If I had known I was looking for a fingerwidth--” but he’s not really paying attention to that either, and his words die to silence on his lips as he presses his fingers in and against the line of the braid over his ear. Legolas rocks back onto his knees to watch Gimli feel out the pattern, his fingers slowing into deliberate focus as he gains a sense for the shape and curve of the braid under his touch. Finally he speaks, in the soft tone that Legolas still savours to hear, even after all this time. “Laddy, this feels like--”

“Yes,” Legolas says, speaking in a tone pitched to match Gimli’s own. “It’s the same I use myself.” He drops his hands to his lap and interlaces them carefully, steadying himself against the flutter of unfamiliar self-consciousness that always takes him at moments like this, as if he’s a child in the woodlands once more. “It seemed appropriate to give it to you as well.”

“Ah.” It’s just one sound, a single huff more an exhale than anything else, but Legolas has known Gimli a long time and he recognizes the gruff weight of emotion at the other’s lips. He ducks his head forward to smile at his hands while before him Gimli leans forward to get to his feet as if the movement will cover the tremor Legolas knows will be collecting itself at his lips. “Well then.” He clears his throat again, needlessly, before steadying his stance and reaching to collect the fall of his unbound hair in both hands so he can pull it into the heavy braid in which he usually keeps it. “As long as it’s something small.”

Legolas smiles. “No one will even notice it if they’re not looking for it.”

“Well enough.” Gimli ties off the end of his braided hair and pushes it back to hang between his shoulders before he coughs as if he has something caught in the broad span of his chest. Legolas looks up at him, still smiling to himself, and the expression just goes wider when he picks out the tiny line of the curving braid he worked into the hair just over Gimli’s ear. It really is difficult to see, hard to notice and harder still to identify without the context of which Legolas is master, but it’s there clearly for his eyes, when he knows where to look, and he feels the relevance of that elvish design in dwarven hair enough all on his own without anyone else’s assistance.

“Right then.” Gimli’s collected himself from his moment of emotion; he’s turning back around to face Legolas still kneeling on the floor before him as he braces his hands on his hips. In their present position Gimli has the advantage of height; something Legolas lets him keep, for the moment, if only because he so readily has the ability to reclaim it for himself at a moment’s notice. “It’s your turn now, laddy.”

“I await your will,” Legolas says, with as much formality as he can find when he has amusement trying to tug itself free of his lips. Gimli doesn’t even try to respond in kind; he just lets himself laugh, big enough to echo off the space of their quarters as he steps forward to come around Legolas at the floor.

“I’ll convince you of our way yet,” he declares as he steps in to stand behind Legolas and catches his hands around the weight of the other’s hair. “Try one fight like this and you’ll be asking me to put your pretty hair up every time.”

“My hair is perfectly under control,” Legolas says. “Is dwarvish attention so easily swayed by something so small?” Gimli snorts protest to this and Legolas smiles and bows his head to surrender to the gentle pull of Gimli’s hands at his hair. Gimli’s grip is unflinching on his battle-ax and firm around a mug of ale; on the weight of Legolas’s hair it’s gentle as wind winding through trees, careful enough that Legolas can hardly feel the pull at all. It’s a comfort to linger in just for the sensation even without considering the end result, until Legolas is content to shut his eyes and let Gimli’s certain hold urge the loose of his hair back in and over itself as the other draws it into a single heavy plait.

“There,” Gimli says. His put-upon irritation of a few minutes before is entirely gone, now, along with the tremor of barely-repressed emotion that so threatened his voice; he just sounds pleased, now, full of the solid warmth of pride in a job well done. “That’ll keep those pretty blond locks of yours out of your face.”

“They weren’t in my face to begin with,” Legolas informs Gimli, just to make sure this point is quite clear, but it’s his turn, now, to be distracted. His hair is pulled together into the middle of his back, drawn into a single heavy plait that hangs in a straight line between his shoulderblades; it feels oddly heavy as the individual strands never did even in total as it pulls at the base of his scalp and shifts with momentum of its own as he moves. He reaches up to touch against the line of it and follow the pattern Gimli has laid into the plait, mapping the unfamiliar pattern under his fingertips as Gimli hums satisfaction behind him.

“You look proper, now,” he declares. “You’re still too much leg to be mistaken for a dwarf of any kind but at least your hair is in order as it should be.”

“Indeed,” Legolas says, and lets his touch fall from his hair so he can tip his head to the side and smirk up at Gimli next to him. “Perhaps if I were to stay on my knees, the effect would be more complete.”

Gimli snorts a laugh that creases the weather-worn lines of his face into warmth enough to shine in his eyes. “I’m afraid you’d be out of luck even then,” he says, and reaches to press his fingers against the line of Legolas’s jaw. “Even the most untried youth sports a better beard than you’ll manage in all your centuries.”

“Ah,” Legolas sighs. “That is a shame. I’m afraid I cannot help you there.”

Gimli shakes his head. “There’s no help for it, laddy,” he says. “You’ll always be a pretty Elvish princeling.”

Legolas reaches up to trace against the tiny line of braid in Gimli’s hair, lost to sight but clear to his fingertips. “And you’ll always be a grumpy old dwarf.”

“And proud of it,” Gimli replies immediately, and Legolas’s laugh finally breaks free of his lips. He draws his touch down behind Gimli’s ear, smoothing against the weight of the other’s hair to come down and stroke against his beard, and Gimli slides his hand back to settle at the back of Legolas’s head, atop the weight of the braid he’s made of the other’s hair.

When their lips meet, Legolas finds his own smile reflected with perfect accuracy at Gimli’s mouth.


End file.
